


small things

by bummerang



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 17:46:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12237675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bummerang/pseuds/bummerang
Summary: Of compensations and making do.(Ozpin loses pieces of himself as the years pass, as the magic takes its toll. But, even when it ends it doesn't, and not all is lost.)





	small things

Ozpin knows inevitability quite intimately.

It is saying 'yes' when he wants to say 'no', because the consequences of 'no' are far greater than 'yes'. It's learning to live with being much more than he's ever wanted. It was the moment he used his semblance in the Emerald Forest, and a withering headmaster had seen and planned.

He's resigned to inevitability.

But this time, he won't let it have James.

Taiyang left half an hour ago, the only one between them not bleeding trails. Ozpin knows he won't make it back in time. Even if he wasn't running on a broken rib, the town is still a mile away. A mile on that and almost no aura is a very long time.

It's already too long for James. There's too much that's broken, and all Ozpin has been able to do is keep him breathing, though it's rough and wet. Ozpin starts a little when James unexpectedly grips his arm. His gaze is steady and earnest as he holds Ozpin's, intense in the weak light of dusk.

“It's going to be okay,” he says, breathy and stilted. “You—you'll be okay.” And then, perhaps realizing what a terrible thing that is— “I'm sorry.”

Then—he stops.

There's a horrible, long second where Ozpin just stares, uncomprehending, as the world narrows to a single, breathless point. And without really thinking, without realizing—he _pulls_.

He still remembers the first time he felt the Wizard's magic rise within him unbidden, the heady, floating sensation, the heat under his skin.

He focuses on the memory of that heat and pulls the magic around him, letting its tendrils wind through his aura. Then he activates his semblance and pushes, back and back, ignoring the way it grates unnaturally over every instinct, over everything he knows about what he can and can't do. In this moment, wrapped in the very essence of possibility, he doesn't have to think.

And then his aura shatters.

He chokes. The pain leaves him without breath to scream. It's unlike anything he's ever felt before. Not a depletion, not a shimmer—it _breaks_. He feels it down to his bones, sudden, crashing. He bites off a whimper, tries to breathe through it—

James groans.

Ozpin freezes at the sound. James' heartbeat pulses against his aura, stuttering and erratic, but _there_.

He stares dumbly, not certain if this is real—but then the last few minutes suddenly catch up to him all at once, and he drops. The magic, now purposeless, hovers uncertainly before retreating, pulling the shards of his aura close, curling into him as he curls up.

He closes his eyes to the sound of James' harsh breathing.

James will be angry. But angry means alive, and that's good enough.

\---

When Ozpin tugs his sleeve and speaks, James startles so badly he drops his scroll.

Ozpin merely stares. He's still trying to blink away the sleep in his eyes.

“What—what the _fuck_ —“

“Water,” he repeats, voice wispy. “Please.”

Abruptly, James stands and leaves. It's alarming enough that Ozpin tries to get out of bed to follow him—only to double over when his side protests with blinding white pain. For about two minutes as he presses the morphine button rather liberally, he considers trying again, until the door swings open and James returns carrying a small plastic bag of crumbled ice.

“What the hell are you _doing_?” James hisses, glowering at Ozpin, who still has one leg out of bed and both hands pressed uselessly to the thick bandaging on his side.

“I thought—nothing. It's nothing.” He eases back under the blanket.

James doesn't look convinced, but he doesn't pursue it. Wordlessly, he holds a piece of ice to Ozpin's lips and Ozpin, noting his thunderous expression, takes it obediently. He lets James feed him until he thinks his voice is hydrated enough to ask, “Are you all right?”

James looks at him. “Are you serious?”

“Usually.” He regrets the flippancy when James shoves off into his chair, though he seems to have the presence of mind to leave the bag of ice by Ozpin's hand.

He still feels muddled and brittle, but he remembers. James has every reason to be furious.

The hospital room is cold, seemingly made more so by the bluish white of the fluorescent lighting, by James' sudden, terrible blankness.

“It's been two weeks,” he says, breaking the silence. He doesn't raise his voice, and somehow that's worse. “Your aura started picking up a few days ago, but before that it was—“ He pauses. Looks away. “We weren't sure you were ever going to wake up.”

Ozpin flinches at the crack in his voice.

“Oz—“

“You were dying,” he says quietly, because he knows James won't want to hear it. It's not an apology.

James keeps staring at the wall, mouth drawn in a thin line. In the end he doesn't reply, but he puts his hand over Ozpin's and grips it tightly. Ozpin lets out a long, shaky breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

It's not forgiveness. It's not even acceptance. James has always found it difficult to reconcile with himself the fact that he has people willing to go to great lengths for him. That he would do the same for them.

Ozpin understands, but he can't be sorry for James' life.

After a long while, James tells him about the others, mostly of how Glynda has vowed to kill them both for scaring decades off her lifespan and Summer promising to help. Then he tells him about Raven using her portals to sneak everybody in past visiting hours— _Taiyang and Qrow nearly got us all caught a bunch of times. Probably thought if they made a lot of noise you'd wake up just to kick them out_ —and Ozpin laughs so hard he has to blink away the burning in his eyes.

\---

Later, when he's able to stand, he spends a long time staring at his hair in the bathroom mirror, at the white streaks in the black.

\---

He's always just a little more tired after that.

At first, he doesn't really notice because tired is his normal, has been since he was seventeen and woke up one day with much more going on in his head than anyone should ever have happening. The memories are inconvenient, but it's mostly the magic that exhausts him. Taxing by nature, and so dense and vast that it seems improbable that all of it can fit in one place. In him. Most of the time, he feels as if he's walking on a tightrope with no end, and at any moment he could fall. He's certain that if he does, he'll drown.

The magic has always had a price. It seems that this time he's paid a larger sum all at once.

So being just a bit more tired becomes a new normal. If he loses a little weight, if the dark circles around his eyes deepen, well—he doesn't look in the mirror much, anyway.

It takes him some time to notice everything else.

Often, he'll find himself wedged between Taiyang and Qrow wherever they happen to be, car or dropship or couch, and he'll doze off to the comfortable warmth and their familiar bickering. They're usually still there when he awakens, the three of them slumped one on the other, like unruly dominoes. On missions, sometimes he'll wake up after a full night and discover that his teammates 'forgot' to wake him for his turn of the watch. When he overuses his aura, someone will inevitably shove a bar of chocolate into his hands.

After a while when he's certain he isn't imagining things, he realizes that they're compensating, even if he's not completely sure what they're compensating for.

It makes him feel equally warm and ashamed.

\---

Qrow is the second time, years later.

He's shaking, hands grasping loosely at Ozpin's arms while Ozpin is pressing his hands down on the wide gash above his hip. Ozpin pours what's left of his aura onto the wound, hopefully stemming something, but blood still seeps through his fingers, and so much of it has already soaked into the mud beneath them, turning it the color of rust. Qrow's aura is barely a flicker against Ozpin's, fluttering weakly with each trembling breath. Overhead, lightning flashes through the clouds, briefly illuminating Qrow's pallid face, and when the thunder follows, it's close enough that Ozpin can feel it tremble over his bones.

“'s fucking unfair,” Qrow mutters. It sounds so petulant and out-of-place on him that Ozpin would laugh if he didn't think he'd sound hysterical. “Gods, I—okay. Look. I lied. I actually h-hate you a lot. So much. Y-you're ridiculous, and infuriating, and—and so— _stupid_ —“

Ozpin does laugh then, choked and weak.

“F-fuck—I—I didn't want t-to tell you like this,” Qrow says, low and wretched, fingers digging into Ozpin's arm with sudden urgency. “I'm—'m sorry, I'm s-sorry—“

“Don't be,” Ozpin manages, finally looking up and meeting Qrow's wide-eyed gaze. He blinks hard to get the water out of his eyes and he's not sure it's just the rain. “I'm not.”

It's true. If Qrow hadn't told him—hadn't mustered the courage where Ozpin never would have—Ozpin wouldn't know now that he feels the same way. Years, Qrow had said. Ozpin had wasted _years_. And now—

Qrow stares, as if he can't believe what he's just heard. “Really?”

Ozpin nods. “Qrow, I—“

It feels like the world is breaking into pieces when Qrow pulls him down. They meet roughly, desperately, and Ozpin falls into the kiss with his eyes closed. There's insistence and regret in the way Qrow's fingers tighten in his hair, in the low moan that sounds in his throat and trembles over them both. Qrow tastes of salt and iron, mingling bitterly into the rainwater on their lips. And Ozpin keeps falling.

He's always wondered, before, but this—it hurts. It just _hurts_.

This is Qrow saying goodbye.

When Qrow pulls back all too soon, he's breathing painfully, breath coming in visible puffs in the cold air. He's smiling with so much warmth, looking utterly complete. Looking at Ozpin like he makes it all complete.

Then, Qrow's fingers loosen from his collar. He sighs just once, and stares, and stares, and Ozpin can't— _he can't_ —

He breaks.

His aura flares and everything stops.

\---

This time, when he wakes up to the pungent sterility of a hospital room, it's to Qrow hunched over the bed in a cheap, plastic chair, head pillowed on one arm. He wonders how long it has been if Qrow can put pressure on his stomach like that.

But he's here, alive. And snoring somewhat enthusiastically. Ozpin's relief is sudden and overwhelming, and he has to close his eyes to it.

He remembers cold lips on his, speaking of terrible finality. He remembers everything before that, sitting on the edge of a cliff with Qrow, watching clouds gather in the distance. And Qrow being uncharacteristically nervous, looking off to the side as he blurted out the last thing Ozpin ever thought possible.

Ozpin has been fine with things as they are. It's enough that Qrow is his friend, it's enough that they partner often on missions, that Qrow even wants to share the same space with him. He doesn't need any more than that.

But he wants—

He _wants_.

He doesn't know if he's allowed to want anything considering what he is, what it's made of his life. He's accepted that, he has, but—

It's still his life, isn't it?

\---

Qrow wakes up with a kink in his neck that makes it painful to turn it to the right, but he doesn't care.

Oz is awake, staring out the window, popping an ice chip in his mouth with one hand and holding Qrow's loosely in the other. He turns to look at him, smiling, as Qrow just gapes.

“How long do you think it will be before they let me leave?” His voice is croaky from disuse and his tone makes it all sound like a mild inconvenience, like he hasn't been touch-and-go for weeks, _the asshole_. “I can see Lucky 88 Noodle Shop from here. It's taunting me.”

Qrow laughs, startled, a little too loud, and closes his eyes to quell the prickling behind them. Oz's grip tightens just a bit, and Qrow immediately squeezes back.

Then Qrow stands and leans forward. “God, I fucking hate you,” he breathes into his hair, leaving a kiss on his cheek.

“A shame,” Oz replies, head tilted up with a tired smile. “I think I'm in love with you.”

Qrow just—he blanks out. It's bliss and terror and _holy shit that's not fair_ , who the fuck even says things like that? “I'm—I—shut up and let me kiss your stupid face.”

And he does, smothering Oz's quiet laughter. When they kiss this time, shaky and gentle and new, it feels like choice. A chance of tomorrow.

\---

Ozpin's hair finally gives in and goes completely white. It's not surprising, but during those first few days out of the hospital he can't help poking it about with uncertainty. It's really nothing more than another physical reminder, yet for some reason it feels heavier, more substantial than any scar on his body. Those, at least, are proof of survival as much as they are of damage. And they're not usually visible.

But with his hair, the black giving over to white feels like proof of some sort of loss. It's like he's fading, bit by bit.

Which is not untrue.

\---

He feels colder, nowadays.

Qrow keeps looking at him with far too much concern, even when Ozpin assures him it's not anything he can't handle, which only seems to alarm him more than anything else. And everyone else seems to take their cues from Qrow, with piled blankets and extra coats and huddling together on missions. Taiyang's aura is a furnace; simultaneously the best and most terrifying thing because it's useful, but Ozpin falls asleep on him more than before. His embarrassment is immeasurable now.

He knows there will come a day when he'll lose too much of himself for their compensations to help.

But Summer has always had a sense for Ozpin's brand of maudlin. One morning, while they're having coffee and watching Qrow snipe with Glynda over the last of the milk, Summer says, “You can talk to us, you know.” She smiles at his surprise, a little knowing, a little cheeky. “Thought I should remind you since you're doing that thing where you look into the distance all depressingly.”

“It's a thing?”

“Absolutely a thing.”

Oh dear.

“I'm sure you get a lot done that way, but still. Since you're stuck with us you may as well make the most of it, right?”

“Gods help me,” he mutters, properly aghast.

She laughs. “Could do worse.” After a moment it fades into a soft, contemplative smile.

Ozpin considers her quietly as she stares into her cup, her silver eyes unfathomable. He knows they weigh on her. It's not the kind of extraordinary she'd envisioned for herself, but she's taken to it with the sensible kind of optimism that she takes most everything. She worries—about the destiny that comes with her power, about leaving her family behind, about Ruby most especially—but she has never let her worries stop her from doing what she wants, what she must.

“We're lucky,” she says, looking up and grinning. “Disasters have to stick together, after all.”

\---

Many years later, as he's placing a single white rose on a simple marker, he remembers their last conversation.

_We're lucky._

There are days where, though he won't admit it out loud, he agrees with Qrow: the universe is, indeed, fucked up.

Some days, he's afraid that perhaps somewhere deep down he's given up on hope, and the only reason he moves forward is because he has no better choice.

\---

There isn't time. He knows, objectively, that it's a waste, knows it's illogical, but when he looks at Pyrrha, sees her terrified but determined to do what she believes is right, it doesn't feel like a waste.

“I—I need to hear you say it.”

She looks at Jaune, grief and longing clear in her gaze—then she looks at him, a different sort of clarity. “Yes.”

With that one word, he knows he's failed.

\---

It's never enough. Try as he might, trying is all he's ever had. And he is out of chances.

There is less of him and so much more of her. The magic is new to her; it has not yet demanded its price.

Ozpin dies in flame, an all-encompassing heat that leaves him nothing and leaves nothing of him. His scream is soundless.

But he suspects he's been dying well before the night in the vault.

\---

It's the first time Ozpin wishes he'd woken up in a hospital. He'd rather endure the presence of needles and the muddiness of drugs in his system than do _this_.

Oscar Pine is sixteen years old. He likes apricot strudels and meat pies, and hates tomatoes. He doesn't know how to swim. It takes him twenty minutes to bike to school, and he's frequently late to first period because he sleeps in and takes too long to feed the chickens. He has a crush on the boy with reddish blond hair he often partners with for dissections in biology, but he's not even certain the boy is aware of his existence outside the classroom. He always spends lunch in the library, where he liberally violates the no food rule by smuggling in peanut butter sandwiches.

He's a good kid.

Ozpin puts it off. It's shameful, but so is saddling this child with a fate he didn't choose—and it should be strange that this is a choice at all, shouldn't it? If it were a real choice, if Ozpin could choose—

He would choose to take it all back in a heartbeat, even as a godforsaken ghost, if he never has to tell Oscar Pine what he's become.

But he does, eventually. Choice is a luxury.

\---

“ _Come on_ ,” Oscar grinds out, tossing the book he'd been valiantly not reading across the room. They have been at a stalemate for some time, but there is something different about Oscar's anger tonight. Something desperate. “Look. Whatever you want from me—I don't have it. I just want to finish school—normal school—get a loan to a normal, boring college, and become a pilot so I can see the world and make enough money to fix up all the crap in the house my aunt's been wanting fixed for forever. If that sounds wimpy to a hard-ass hunter like you, fine. So what if it is?”

He's so defiant, as if he expects Ozpin to find him lacking for his own aspirations.

“You're right. I don't want to be on this farm forever. But I also don't want to be a hunter, I don't want to fight monsters, _I don't want to die_. ” He turns to the window, where the sun has begun setting, casting a host of warm colors over the sky and into the clouds. “I want my life to be mine.”

It hits all the familiar notes for Ozpin.

Oscar's anger deflates into sullen quiet, leaving a creeping feeling of anxiety as he waits for Ozpin to try again. They both know, deep down, that Oscar won't hold out forever. And it frightens Oscar beyond anything, that inevitability.

Ozpin has had years to resign himself to inevitability. He doesn't want that for Oscar. He wants Oscar to find better.

So he decides to try the truth. His truth.

“I was halfway through my first year at Beacon,” he begins softly, “when the headmaster died in his sleep and left me with—well, _this_.” He'd ignored the headmaster's voice for quite a while, but not nearly as long as Oscar had ignored his. “I'd already made the decision to attend a combat school and consign myself to danger so, in a way, when I came round to it I had an easier time reconciling the risk to my life. The wizard's power and its consequences seemed like a larger extension of what I'd chosen. Or so I thought.”

Tentatively, Ozpin brings up an old, personal memory and deliberately allows Oscar to see. He's not sure it will be well-received, but it's important for him to understand.

Ozpin had been nineteen then, and so tired. Of the constant reminders to be discreet, of training to keep up with the magic that wouldn't stop growing, the exhaustion that wouldn't abate no matter how much he ate or slept. Of himself, and not knowing why he was fighting. Specific convictions—fighting for his teammates, his friends, the people right in front of him at any given point—those made sense. But fighting for the world? For good to triumph over evil? The scale of it was frightening, incomprehensible.

So, the day before the beginning of the next term, he'd told his aunt he was quitting.

She wouldn't have forced the issue. She'd never been the type. But she had asked why and he'd told her, shamefully, that he didn't know what he was doing anymore. What was he risking his life for? What was he supposed to do?

She hadn't known about the Wizard's aura or any of that, but that hadn't mattered.

 _Risk is one way to look at it, but you're not going out to risk your life, are you?_ She'd taken his hand in both of hers and clasped it gently. She'd been small, frail, perpetually trembling from some invisible, personal chill, but her eyes had been clear and patient. Always. _You go out there to fight for something. Don't forget that you're not looking to die. And don't forget that hunters fight for themselves as much as they do for others._

And that had been just enough.

“I told you before that this was not a responsibility I'd wanted, not at first. Truthfully, I never came to want it at all. But wanting has nothing to do with it. It's not just about responsibility. It's knowing that no matter what we choose, Salem will still exist and with her there will always be grimm in our world. But only one choice gives us an opportunity to do something about it.”

Oscar's breath audibly hitches at _Salem_. No doubt he remembers the tiny glimpse Ozpin had shown him before. It had been necessary to complete the point, but Ozpin still feels badly for it all the same. 

“The Wizard's magic and this complicated aura that is no longer just his but ours—“ his, Oscar's, everyone that had come before— “it will be a part of you for the rest of your life. That does not mean it is your whole life. I know this will be difficult to understand right now, but acceptance does not mean you give your life away. It means you make do.”

It's not always horrible, but he doesn't think Oscar will be able to believe that just yet.

Oscar remains quiet while the sun sets, his gaze fixed to the window. When the sun drops so far below the horizon that there is only a strip of red and orange in the distance, he says, abruptly, “You have an aunt?”

“Yes,” Ozpin says, a little startled.

“Your only family?”

Not by blood, but the only family he'd had until he'd attended Beacon. “Yes.”

“Is she...?”

“Ah, no. Illness. It was a long time ago.”

Oscar grimaces. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. She lived long and well.”

“Still,” Oscar mutters, shrugging. He picks at the frayed edge of his blanket, flicking the loose fibers. “My aunt's my only family, too. She's always telling me I gotta get outta here someday. That even if I decide that I like quiet better, I should at least know what noise is like. This noise, though—“ he taps the side of his head with a frown— “I never thought magic would be like this. It feels loud.”

He'll get used to it with time, but that won't help now. “There are ways to quiet it, temporarily. I can teach you, later. But—“ He reaches for the aura in a way that he had never been able to when he was alive, much more directly, and he pulls at a thread of it until something loosens, until the hum fades to background noise.

“Oh,” Oscar breathes, relaxing for the first time in days. “Uh. Thanks. That helps.”

“No trouble.”

Oscar sighs. “That's not true, though, is it?” Then, louder, “We both know I'm going to do this. I know you're right, that Sa—that the freaky lady isn't gonna go away even if I ignore her. Probably get worse if I ignore her. But I—I wanna sort this out in my head. Could you give me a day?”

He should be relieved, but strangely all he feels is a little sick. “Yes.” He makes to retreat, perhaps get some sleep or whatever passes for sleep as a ghost—

“You don't have to go,” Oscar says. He sounds embarrassed. “I mean, you can stay if you want. I don't mind.”

Ozpin doubts that, but there is something being offered here.

He takes it and stays.

\---

Oscar's dreams are half memory and half the bemusing, fantastic invention of his subconscious mind. As dreams are, really. It's not that Ozpin is particularly interested in experiencing them, but this is one of those things he can't control.

What surprises Ozpin is when he starts dreaming. As a remnant, he hadn't thought it possible.

Unlike Oscar, though, when Ozpin dreams it's always the same thing.

He feels tired and sore. Cold. The air is cold, the wood beneath his fingers is cold. Sometimes, he thinks he hears the patter of rain. Sometimes he can open his eyes, but he's never able to see much. A single square of light in the darkness, filtering in gray light. A familiar, patterned crack on the window.

The odd thing is that as he dreams it more and more, it feels less and less like a dream.

\---

Qrow looks more worn. There's a little more gray streaking through his hair, and his eyes are tight with lack of sleep and some deep exhaustion. But the smile that crosses his lips when Oscar asks for the cane is real even if it doesn't quite reach his eyes.

He's right here, close enough to touch, but—Ozpin is dead. He's dead in every way that matters.

He misses Qrow so fiercely that he doesn't know what to do with himself.

\---

He apologizes—through Oscar—because he has to, because he wants to, even knowing that it's meaningless to them. Sorry, at its worst, is merely an acknowledgment of remorse. At its worst, it can't fix anything.

Apologies do not bring back the dead.

\---

Hardly a week passes when Oscar wakes up abruptly and says, blearily, “Okay, you're not really dead.”

By now, Ozpin is used to his tendency for sudden epiphanies, but having them just after waking up is really quite impressive. When Ozpin was alive, it had usually taken him an hour to start forming basic sentences. “Oscar, I assure you I am dead,” he says, gentle and wry. He's careful to keep that memory of fire to himself.

“How long have you been haunting me?” Oscar asks.

Haunting is far too accurate. “Nearly four months.”

“How long were you haunted?”

“Three weeks.”

“Nobody's ever haunted as long as you, have they?”

“Oscar—“ but he's thinking, remembering the things that aren't his, parsing the enormous tangled knot of memories that make up the Wizard's aura and— “No.”

Oscar nods as if he's proven something profound. He sways a little with the motion, still hazy with sleep. “I know you haven't noticed, but every time you go away—or go to sleep, or whatever—it feels like you're actually leaving. Not fading like the others did. Just stepping out a little, like you have to go somewhere but you're not ready yet. And I know you've been having the same dream, too, about the empty cabin,” he adds softly.

Ozpin starts at that.

“It's cold,” Oscar continues, “and we can hear the rain on the roof, and there's a—“

“—a crack on the window, patterned remarkably like a spider's web.”

It's taken him a while, but he remembers. He knows the cabin very well. So does Oscar. It is, after all, the most prominent feature of the Wizard's memories, though only a handful of his years there had been spent with any sort of contentment.

Ozpin went there once, many years ago. Partly out of curiosity, but mostly because it happened to be the only shelter for miles, and when he'd mentioned it Qrow had preferred the 'creepy-ass house' to sleeping in the open. Being in it hadn't been anything profound. Actually, it had been a little uncomfortable because he could vividly remember what the cabin used to be like, and there had been a constant ache in his chest, some phantom grief for a lost home. But Qrow had been there to talk, to make him laugh, to ground him and keep the memories at bay.

“That dream isn't like the others. You know it isn't.” There's an odd strain to Oscar's tone, a fragile hope. “Don't you feel it? Like there's something missing?”

Missing. He thinks of James nestled still and pale among the tree roots, Qrow slack and bleeding out in the rain—and he remembers the simple truth. They had been too far gone. He knew, he knew, but if he kept pushing, if he gave enough of himself, then maybe—

Maybe he could compensate.

Oh.

“I'm just guessing,” Oscar says, but his tone belies his words, as steady as it has ever been. “Your semblance let you fix them, but it couldn't make them whole. So when you—compensated?—you did it by splitting your own aura. Gave your friends a part of you to help them fix what they lost.”

He knows where this is going. “Oscar, that doesn't mean—“

“It does.”

“I didn't know what I was doing then,” Ozpin says truthfully. “I remember doing something, but it was more instinct than anything conscious. I think—I think I wanted to save them badly enough.”

“Right. And I think you instinctively did it that night at Beacon because you really wanted to live. You make it sound like these are different things,” Oscar says, bemused, “but I don't think they are.”

Ozpin doesn't know what to say to that.

“I get it. I do. But it wouldn't hurt to go and take a look, right?”

\---

Qrow agrees to go, and Ozpin is torn. On one hand, Oscar shouldn't travel grimm-infested lands on his own with a ghost that may or may not be of any help (he honestly doesn't want to find out). On the other, if this turns out to be nothing—

Qrow's grief is a quiet, wretched thing that rots, and Ozpin has been hoping that time has dulled it even a little, even though he knows it will never go away. Qrow is not the kind of person who allows his grief to become less.

It sounds too much like forgetting, and how could I do that?

It's not that he doesn't trust Oscar's intuition. It's not that he doesn't want to believe him. But it's more than a matter of belief.

The dream is always so vivid, so real—but what if it isn't? What if it's just a figment of Ozpin's desire because he wanted so badly for it to be real?

Ozpin doesn't know what he'll do.

\---

“He wants me to tell you not to get your hopes up.”

_Oscar._

Oscar winces. “Not, like, in those exact words. I'm paraphrasing, okay?” He can't be blamed. Professor Melodrama has been at it since they finally found the trail hidden in the brush, and Oscar has come way too far to let either of them be second guessed out of this.

Behind him, he hears Qrow snort. “He says I'm bad, but he's never been good at optimism either.”

Oscar can't tell if Qrow came along just to make sure he doesn't do something stupid, if he's actually hopeful, or just too drunk to—oh, wait. No, he's not drunk. He's totally sober, for once. This is somehow way more unsettling.

 _I'm being sensible_ , Ozpin says, sounding like it. Oscar wonders if that ever gets tiring. Sometimes, sensible coming from him just sounds like another way of saying 'really jaded and afraid'.

“Yeah, and I'm being accurate.”

Ozpin sighs. _Your certainty is heartening but also perplexing._

Not really, but it would be to him, considering Oscar hasn't told him everything. Whenever Ozpin has that not-dream, Oscar doesn't just see the same thing from a safe distance, he actually has it with him. He's breathed through ragged lungs, tasting blood with every exhale. He's felt that body curl in, shivering, aching with sickness, parts of him still bare with old burns that haven't quite healed. In the back of his mind he's noticed the little spark of the Wizard's aura, of magic, the bit that's clung on like the little bit of Ozpin's soul that clings to a half dead body. That spark is probably the only thing keeping him only half dead.

But Oscar doesn't say any of this, because it's awful. And Ozpin will feel guilty for Oscar experiencing all of that, even knowing he couldn't have done anything about it. And _that_ , well—

Sure, Oscar thinks he's exasperating. He keeps too many secrets and does preaching better than reassuring. But he tries to give Oscar options, tries to make things easier by teaching him all the stuff it had taken Ozpin years to figure out. He tries when he doesn't have to, when it's obviously easier for himself if he doesn't.

Oscar doesn't hate him. He wouldn't be doing any of this if he hated him.

The path breaks through the trees into a small clearing, revealing the cabin standing right in the middle of it. It's a surprisingly intact thing for something covered in so much overgrowth. Sheets of ivy cling to it on all sides, curiously avoiding the windows, with stray vines covering the chimney and crawling along the door. There is a plot of land beside it that could once have been the garden, but is now indiscernible with the rest of the long grass.

Funny enough, with the few sunbeams breaking through the treetops. it really does look like something out of a fairy tale.

Dimly, he can feel the Wizard's aura tugging gently in the cabin's direction and he just knows. For sure, now. Knowing he's right and seeing— _feeling_ —that proof in front of him are two entirely different things.

He thinks Ozpin might be convinced, too.

Qrow's expression is unreadable, but Oscar can feel the agitation in his aura. He exchanges a brief glance with Oscar, who nods, then he sets off running into the tall grass. Oscar hangs back; he doesn't want to follow just yet.

“I won't say I told you so.”

Ozpin laughs, but it sounds a little strained. _Gracious of you._

Oscar watches Qrow try the door a couple of times and then swear at it before he realizes that Ozpin is still with him. “What? What's wrong?”

It takes a moment, but then: _I don't know how to go there._

“Uh.” Oscar hadn't thought of that. “Fall asleep?”

_Really?_

What else do they have? “What does it feel like when you try to sleep?”

There's a nervous kind of impression, like Ozpin is shifting. _It's like letting go._

Oh. Oscar swallows hard. Ahead, Qrow looks like he's trying to rip off the hinges. He's pretty sure the only reason Qrow hasn't kicked it down is because Ozpin's body might be right there. “What if—what if you imagine something else? Like waking up?”

Pretend the last seven months had been some scary, wild dream.

Ozpin shifts again. _All right_ , he agrees, surprisingly.

More surprisingly, it happens without a hitch.

Oscar stays at the edge of the clearing, even as Qrow successfully shakes the door open, even as he feels Ozpin abruptly disappear the moment he 'wakes up', taking the rest of his aura, his memories, and a large portion of Wizard with him all at once. In a heady, breathless rush, it leaves Oscar feeling both tired and less burdened, the ocean of magic that was a roar of static in his head now just a distant noise, like the television turned low in another room.

He leans against a tree as he readjusts to the glorious feeling of _less_ , and decides to wait a while longer. He thinks of the few times Qrow has spoken of Ozpin on personal terms, ground out tightly, so controlled that he couldn't tell if it was anger or grief or both. He remembers feeling Ozpin's definite grief at the bar, when Qrow told him it was good to see him and he couldn't answer back in his own voice.

Oscar has always known, but he'd never pried before. He doesn't, now.

\---

Letting go is surprisingly easy. Everything after that is a blur of feeling and sound.

It happens in bits and instances. A low sort of pain, the pervasive ache that shadows a fever. The feeling of smooth, petrified wood on his skin. The feeling of something warm and soft wrapping around him. He's trembling still, breathing harsh and difficult, but he's being held. Cradled close, his head lolling into the crook of a bony shoulder. There's a familiar voice, low and slightly raspy, murmuring comfort.

_I've got you. It's okay._

He wants to open his eyes, but they're just too heavy. Everything is too heavy.

_Go to sleep._

He can't help it. He does.

\---

This, too, is inevitability.

He wakes up feeling fractured, cracked like glass.

It takes him a while to focus, to blink away some of the fog and distance. At first, he can't remember what he's done to end up in the hospital this time. The months return to him in pieces, disjointed fragments that order themselves not in sequence but as parts of a whole. He takes it all in, even though it feels like he's watching it all from far away.

His head is pounding with the effort of being awake and he feels raw all over, but it's—this is his own pain he's feeling through his own body. He can feel. The stiffness of gauze around his arms, the soft bedding, even the crispness of the air around him.

He's cold. He's cold and it's _good_.

His gaze slowly falls on Qrow standing by the window, arms crossed and leaning with his hip against the sill, looking out over the gray, rainy world. Ozpin can't quite manage the effort for words, but it isn't necessary. Qrow turns, then, and he stares as Ozpin blinks back at him. He tries to wave, but only manages to raise his hand slightly off the bed for a weak twitch to the side.

It seems to break Qrow out of his shock. He walks over and carefully sits on the edge of the bed, eyes flickering uncertainly over Ozpin's face. “Oz?”

He nods once, minutely.

Qrow laughs, short and stunned, and then he smiles. The relief in it is palpable. “Hey,” he says, reaching out and lightly brushing Ozpin's hair out of his eyes. It's grown long enough that he can tuck the longest strands behind his ear. Ozpin can't help shivering a little as Qrow's warm fingers brush over his skin. He remembers what touch is like— _hot, cool, comforting, rough, intense, careful, safe_ —of course he remembers—but feeling it now, in this moment, after months of not feeling much at all, it's almost too much.

Qrow pauses, looking at him with concern and realization. “Oh, shit. I—should I—“

“No,” Ozpin manages in a voice barely above a whisper, hating the thread of desperation in it. “Please, Qrow, I—”

But he doesn't have to finish. Qrow takes his hand, holding it firmly, but his grip isn't tight. Ozpin relaxes and squeezes back weakly, mustering a small, hopefully reassuring smile.

Qrow's own smile widens, tired but genuine, and it eases some of the shadows beneath his eyes. “It's good to see you again, Oz.”

When Qrow kisses him, warm and soft and very much here, Ozpin wonders how he can feel so much.


End file.
